


Who Will Save the War Child?

by bloodofpyke



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya POV; set in the House of Black and White post-AFFC</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Will Save the War Child?

She was eleven, and she didn’t think she had a heart anymore. It was hard to be certain, because it was hidden away beneath her ribs, but she thought her heart had vanished.

She had been losing things for as long as she could remember, dropping bits of herself, shedding identities like a snake. She was eleven and she’d lost more things than she could count on both hands; her name, her home, her family’s faces, her eyes, and now her heart. There were pieces she still clung to fiercely, pieces seared into her brain. They flashed through her whenever she closed her eyes: a wolf named Nymeria, a sword named Needle, a list of names and a burning hatred, someone ruffling her hair and calling her little sister, an upturned bull helm in the dirt.

“No one, I am no one,” she whispered fiercely into the darkness that followed her everywhere now. “No one from nowhere.” Something pierced her chest where her heart used to be, and she clutched at it, feeling like a name was hovering just beyond her grasp. A blaze of snow, the smell of cold filled her, and she reached out, like she was going to grab at the memory until it was hers again.

“No one from nowhere,” she repeated, the words torn from her throat, raw and dragging. “No one from nowhere.” She stood up stiffly, dizzy with the movement, and walked from the room, making an effort to keep her hands by her sides. _My feet know the way,_ she told herself sternly. _I don’t need to help them._ Her ears heard the clink of bottles before she had even turned the corner and she paused a moment, hands going back to the empty space in her chest. “No one, I am no one.”

She closed her eyes tightly, deepening the blackness, and tried to call back the gleam of snow, the biting cold. Something within her broke when she couldn’t.


End file.
